Moving from an organisation specific to a globally localised solutionby Jonathan Challener, OECD

The importance of localisation

“While English has become the lingua franca of the international business world, there are over 6,909 languages used in the world. Huge populations are deprived of the full benefit of computing if the devices do not support their preferred languages. Without technology’s help, there is a danger that these languages could become extinct. When a language dies, the rich cultural heritage of a segment of the world population

disappears. Hence, localisation is important.”Lewis, M Paul (ed.), 2009, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition, Dallas, Texas.

Internationalisation is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Thus, supporting localisation more easily.

First consider internationalisation (i18n)

i18n

GoalsPackaging of the strings used in the software so that the corresponding strings from a user’s language can be deployed without impacting the functionality of the application.

The application presents information and/or processes as per the expectations of the target users.

What is localisation (l10n)?

Localisation is the process of adapting internationalised software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text.

ecd

• Dedicated translation database• Externalise remaining strings into database• Create custom database providers and configure with Web.config• Refactor DB architecture to handle only the default language• Dedicated service to handle default language to target language• Translation web module• JavaScript localisation plugin• Centralised cache service• Use dedicated tools

How to support it?

DataModel to localise a large data-oriented application

Item

• Key: identity• Namespace: varchar(1000)• Name: varchar(100)

Label

• Key: identity• Value: varchar(1000)

0..N

1..1

0..N

Language

• Key: identity• Label: varchar(100)• ISOTwoLetterCode: char(2)

1..1

The same language said differently

l10n

Responsibilities of target organisation:• Translating the menu strings and application messages

to the users’ desired language as it requires a good knowledge of the target language, and a style guide for translation.

• Documentation localisation as a good command of the language and translation skills is also needed.

The continuous workflow to globalisation

source: laT_vicky CC-BY 3.0 Unported

Jonathan Challener, OECD jonathan.challener@oecd.org@Challener

OECD’s Statistical Information System Collaboration Community WorkshopApril 2013, Paris France